


Works And Days

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Community: holmestice, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 18:55:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg's life told in moments from <em>A Study in Pink</em> and after <em>The Reichenbach Fall</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Works And Days

_The Beginning_

He recounts the day by cups of bad coffee. The first one in the morning, early before Susie and the kids wake up – the quiet of the house before the thumping and rattling of pipes and football boots and books and the shouts of quarreling siblings and unhappy couples. 

Most of the time it's not even light yet, but Greg doesn't really need to sleep – doesn't really want to, not with the words and images and numbers and scenarios that buzz through his head like a nest of angry hornets. 

_Greg, GREG! Just because you're awake doesn't mean I have to do this by myself!_

_Dad!_

_Dad!_

_GREG!_

The second one at the office – his shirt already stained when the paper cup fails, sloshing hot liquid that immediately turns ice cold on his shirt and vest, seeping into the skin. 

Paper and complaints and phone calls to return and God, he would kill for a cigarette again, but no, the patch will have to do, and Donovan’s shouting at him that the press conference has been bumped up because there's another body – this time it's an MP or a Council Chair or someone who'd been out on a bender and killed herself miles away from her fundraising do. 

The third one after Sherlock's text. _Wrong_. That one at least has the consolation of being consumed with a sticky bun, stale from being in the vending machine for too long, tasting of plastic wrapping – they're a bit starved for choice down here these days, but it's lunch.

The fourth one on the way to Brixton, and there he watches Sherlock dash off. 

Five and six, waiting for Mycroft to get his head out of his arse and then to come to the point. Those are the cups he savors: the perfect balance of milk and coffee, the roast dark and bitter as he likes it – so much caffeine his spoon would probably stand up in it, and sandwiches. God, the sandwiches. 

Oh, but those sandwiches come with a suggestion, a single word that sends Greg hurtling back to 221B and then across town as the night wears on. 

Cups seven and eight – he really should stop sometime, but he can stop whenever he wants to – are with the ambulance boys and some of the press, who are snapping pictures of Sherlock and the orange blanket. These also come with a quiet smoke after Sherlock and John – yes, the killer of the cabbie is named John – the quiet doctor bloke from earlier – Greg's not _stupid_ , just exhausted – manage to finally bugger off. 

It's worth it, too, to see Sherlock and Mycroft squabbling with each other. Greg tips his cup to Mycroft in silent salute as he turns and is rewarded with a grave nod. 

Greg grins, pushes away the thought of the paperwork and the interviews – and oh, God, probably another press conference tomorrow – and decides to head for home. 

The house is silent when he lets himself in. Late again. Simon's football boots are all over mud – the coffee table has chunks of turf and dirt on it, a not-too-subtle message from Susie regarding the lateness of his return. 

Greg liberates the bottle of scotch from beneath the sink and sweeps the mud and turf and bits of grass off the coffee table and into the trash. He falls asleep on the sofa, fully clothed, but at least has the presence of mind to stash the bottle back beneath the sink first. His mouth'll taste like death in the morning, but that's what the first cup of coffee is for.

* * *

_After the Fall_

He recounts the hours by how many times he has to dump the cigarette butts, bent and torqued in the old saucer that Susie had graciously allowed him to use. Dusky pink roses with dark brown stems. 

"Desert Rose – but the wrong year. It's worthless. You can use it."

Now it has indelible streaks of black, chips and nicks where it has been too vigorously cleaned – but never clean enough.

"Filthy."

It's the only thing she allowed him to take from their house. Well, that and a picture of the kids. Except the only picture of the kids is one of all of them, standing on a cliff in Ibiza: Simon looking bored, Issy looking flushed and sick with the stomach bug that would lay them all low on the way back home, Susie and he smiling determinedly at the camera. 

"I suppose you might as well have this, if you want it so badly."

There's water dripping down the window sash. The sill will be all standing water if he doesn't do something about it. He stubs out the last cigarette. Not the last one by choice, but by necessity. It’s a filthy night out there, and he can't manage a run to the off license in this weather. 

He thinks he should go to bed, it's late, but really, what's the point? Not like he's got somebody or something to get up for. Only more packing of boxes. Books and papers, newspapers, slips of receipts, the detritus of a life. It was held that one could determine another person's life by what they left behind: a coffee every morning from the same place, old travelcards, receipts, newspaper clippings of important events, back issues of Time Out, bills, but with this pile: nothing. 

"I've known him for five years, and no…"

It isn't the first time that Greg's awoken on the sofa with a stiff neck, drool drying on his chin and the exhaustion so intense he can barely lift his head. 

He's only been Mrs Hudson's tenant a week. 

Downstairs, the garbage man is bashing bins, Mrs Turner is shouting abuse at him, and the tantalizing smell of coffee is wafting through the open door from Mrs Hudson's flat. He knows that if he goes down there, he’ll be asked in to share a cup. 

He stays upstairs, moving slowly to the kitchen for instant coffee grains and powdered non-dairy creamer. He thinks he should shower and change – the sour smell of his body catches him off guard as he raises his arm to lean against the window to greet the day. 

A black taxi pulls up below, and his heart seizes and stutters in his chest as John gets out, looking pale and drawn. His clothes are dark, a wrinkled suit and a too-bright tie. From below, Greg can hear the knock and sees Mrs Hudson emerge. From the way John's gripping the top of the door to the cab, and the drastic perm and bunch of flowers Mrs Hudson's clutching, Greg can guess where they are headed. 

Greg would go as well, perhaps on his own, but he thinks it wouldn't do either of them any good. 

_With time being short, cut back the long hope._

He turns to the mass of paper that is the lounge and begins in a corner where a harpoon, crusted with dried blood, sits upon a pile of moldy copies of _The Guardian_.

* * *

_The Wedding_

He counts the minutes by the gentle snores beside him, and with each one tries to remember which one of them is drunk. 

Perhaps neither of them are, really. 

Perhaps they're both lucid and fully aware of what they've just done. Greg is sticky, slightly sore; he thinks he pulled a muscle when he came, rutting and thrusting, gasping into Mycroft's mouth. It wasn't a kiss, more like the theft of a breath from his mouth – a grunt, a bitten-off curse, as there Mycroft's come was warm and wet against his thigh. 

Now he lies in the bed, cold – Mycroft is wrapped in the duvet, a freckled shoulder all that is visible – and awake, listening to Sherlock's brother sleep. 

Greg thinks he should go; perhaps there's still some booze left downstairs. By now, surely the other wedding guests are so far gone they won't comment too harshly on his appearance. 

He sits up, casts about in the dim light from the bathroom for his shorts, and finds them tangled in his trousers. 

His shirt is a wreck – buttons missing, collar torn. Greg pulls on his vest and then the shirt; he can't go back downstairs like this. 

Greg sits down on the bed again, rubbing his temples. 

"Greg?" A muffled voice from the duvet. "Where are you going?"

"Ah, I just thought…" Greg says. Mycroft flicks on the bedside light and rolls over. 

"Morning after regrets. Yes. I see." Mycroft's face is shuttered – nothing at all like the face of the man whom Greg had practically tackled against the wall and kissed not two hours ago. Nothing at all like the man who had shoved back, grabbed Greg's face, and kissed him back, licking and biting.

"I should…"

"Yes, you may as well go then," Mycroft finishes for him. "Thank you, Greg. It was a… pleasant experience."

Greg feels the hysterical laugh welling up in his chest, tightening his throat, and he swallows. 

"Well," he manages to reply. "That's what happens with weddings, right? Somebody in the wedding party gets drunk, makes a pass at a person they shouldn't."

"Indeed. But it doesn't mean…"

"Yeah, I don't need you to tell me what it does and doesn't mean," Greg flares. He's tired of all of this – tired of Mycroft's pinched cynicism, tired of skirting around the issue of Sherlock's death – don't try to tell him that Sherlock's ghost _wasn't_ there tonight – everyone making brave faces, jokes about the man who would have been so infuriating and what a pest he would have made of himself – tired of anything even remotely connected to the Holmes brothers, especially when one of them was dead, for Christ's sake. 

"I think we're done here," he says to Mycroft and stands up. 

His exit is only marginally spoiled when he trips as he stoops to pick up his shoes and stumbles over a chair. 

He'll have the bruise on his shin for weeks afterwards.

* * *

_The Return_

He counts the seconds by Mrs Hudson's tears. She's sitting at her kitchen table, clutching a mug of cold, milky tea, sniffling and crying. 

Greg can't blame her. He feels a bit like crying, too. But only after he punches someone. Again.

The someone in question is Sherlock, standing in the center of the small kitchen, looking poleaxed. There is a satisfying redness blossoming beneath his left eye. Greg's knuckles are sore. _Never hit a man with a closed fist_ , he remembers, as he flexes his hand.

"Married?" Sherlock asks for the fourth time. Greg's never seen him at such a loss for words. It's really more satisfying than it should be, but then, this whole scenario…

"Yes, _married_. It's what two people who love each other very much and want to spend the rest of their lives together do, Sherlock," Greg snaps. He hands Mrs Hudson another tissue and she blows her nose loudly. 

"Well obviously not _you_ , Lestrade," Sherlock growls back and Greg stands so quickly the chair rockets back into the wall with a crash. 

"Boys!" Mrs Hudson cries. 

"But… how long? John? Married?" Sherlock's reduced to small words again, and Greg reaches behind him to fetch the chair. Mrs Hudson puts her hand on his arm as he sits down, and he slings the arm around her, holds her close, feels the tears on his cheek. 

"Eighteen months," Greg replies. "When he'd finally managed to, I don't know, reconstruct something of himself, he and Molly… it just _happened_."

"Molly?" Sherlock, who had started to look like he was reviving, collapsed back into his poleaxed look and starts muttering at them. 

"Yeah, Molly."

" _Molly_? But… but HOW? I mean, what was she thinking? Surely she would have… That idiot girl. Stupid, stupid. NO. No, not her. Me. Of course."

"Sherlock…"

"Oh, no… of course… I…" Sherlock spins on his heel and races for the fridge. He rummages around for a moment and liberates something wrapped in foil and saran wrap. "I'll be back! Mrs Hudson, I'll be needing my room back!" he shouts as the front door slams behind him. 

Greg leans his head against Mrs Hudson's shoulder and lets her cry. And if he's crying, too, well… then it's just as well that it's the two of them. 

This is, conveniently, the point at which Greg realizes that as _he's_ the primary tenant in 221B, he's going to have a new flatmate. And that flatmate is going to be Sherlock Holmes. 

And he starts, for the first time in what feels like years, to laugh and laugh and laugh. 

Mrs Hudson whacks him on the shoulder. 

"Naughty," she murmurs. And Greg knows that she's thinking _exactly_ the same thing. 

He hands her another tissue and shakes his head.

* * *

_The Beginning_

Sherlock does move back in to 221B, but Greg makes him take the upstairs bedroom. He makes about as much noise as a herd of elephants tramping around up there, but Greg's purchased earplugs and is learning to sleep with them. 

He's forgiven Mycroft for the misunderstanding around the shag, but not for the whole your-brother-fell-off-a-building plot. Knowledge of the snipers helps a bit, and so does the fact that he's more or less got his old job back. 

If he's honest with himself, Greg thinks he'll forgive Mycroft sooner rather than later – the shag at John and Molly's wedding was very nearly one of the best he's ever had, and he'd like to see if there's more where _that_ came from. 

And, with Mycroft there is a certain amount of consistency – however odd it is. He's taken to texting Greg with astonishing regularity, asking him to dinner every other night. It's sweet really, but Greg doesn't think he's ready quite yet. 

John very nearly put Sherlock in hospital when he turned up at his and Molly's that afternoon. He _then_ came round 221B and asked Greg if he could kip on the sofa, as he and Molly had had a major row about who had known what, when. It had ended with Molly kicking him out, and while Greg could understand John's position, he could also see Molly's point of view as well – she didn't tell him because she _couldn't_. 

He slept on the sofa for about three weeks, during which time Sherlock moved in. It was Sherlock's move in that sent John back to Molly, and for the next month, Greg tried his best to mediate some kind of truce between the three. 

Most of the time, he found himself thankful that _his_ divorce had only involved two people. John spent a lot of time looking pale and drawn again, and spent many hours on the phone with his wife while Greg sat silently by, prepared with beer and a sympathetic ear when the whole thing would go south. 

Now, John and Molly have more or less patched things up and Sherlock sleeps on their sofa a good percentage of the time – that is, when John isn't over at 221B, sleeping on Greg's sofa because Sherlock's worn him out. On those nights, Greg will give Molly a ring to let her know that her husband's safe, and sometimes Molly will come over and take John home. Most of the time, she waits until John stumbles home the next day, exhausted and crashing from the adrenalin, and then gives him a piece of her mind. 

Greg and John both are very careful to buy her flowers, or make sure that Sherlock doesn't bother her at Bart's for a few weeks after the fact, but sooner or later he'll slip up and the whole cycle will start again. 

Greg and Mrs Hudson, meanwhile, drink tea and watch crap telly on afternoons when Greg isn't working, and shake their heads over the antics of the other three. And in the middle of some bizarre chat show one afternoon, he finds himself feeling _content_. He leans back against the sofa and sips a truly spectacular cup of tea and looks over to Mrs Hudson. She smiles and pats his leg. 

"I know, dear," she says. "It's funny how these things happen, isn't it?"

Upstairs, Sherlock's doing something horrible to his violin, and Greg's mobile buzzes. It's a text from Mycroft asking him to dinner. 

It's not a bad little life, Greg thinks, not a bad little life at all. Perhaps this time, he'll say yes. 

"I think you should," Mrs Hudson says, as if reading his mind. "Mycroft Holmes may be a bit of a wanker, if you pardon me for saying so, dear, so rude sometimes, but he has a good heart. Just like Sherlock. He needs someone to look after him, too. Just like Sherlock."

"That's what I do, is it?" Greg asks in mock indignation. 

"Of course it is, dear."

Of course it is.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks as always to the team that made this possible: Bluey, Annie, Lib, Maz, PJ… :D Written originally for weinorciny at Holmestice. The title is cribbed from Hesiod. Not mine, no money.


End file.
